Sterling Heights-based Rizzo Environmental Services Inc. may try to shore up community support for its new bid to increase trash exports out of Macomb County since County Executive Mark Hackel has come out against re-forming the solid-waste plan committee, something Rizzo needs for its request.

This week, Crain's reported that Rizzo was scrapping its previous application to amend the county solid-waste plan to allow a new landfill on 316 acres in Lenox Township. Instead, it favors a new amendment to relax limitations on how much Macomb trash can be shipped outside the county.

Hackel said he has no objection to exporting more trash. But he is concerned that once the political process of amending the waste plan begins, it could shift drastically without control or input from his office. Rizzo could revive the landfill plan at any time once the process is in motion, Hackel said, or other companies could advance additional proposals even if they are unpopular with residents.

"Macomb County's (current waste) plan, which has already been approved, has no issues whatsoever at the state level," Hackel said. "We are considered to have sufficient capacity under our current plan.

"The only interest in amending it is from a company looking to try to attract more investment or customers, and my job isn't trying to help one company go forward in its business."

Hackel now says he has no intention at the moment of offering new appointments to the county's solid-waste plan committee, which would review any amendments including Rizzo's proposal. Macomb hasn't approved a new solid-waste plan since 1999, and the previous committee essentially was disbanded after its members' terms of office expired over two years ago.

An annual solid-waste report from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality indicated in 2012 that the Waste Management Inc.-owned Pine Tree Acres landfill had at least 11 years of remaining capacity to accept waste in Lenox Township. The DEQ provides guidance and oversight for developing and modifying county waste plans.

Pine Tree is Macomb's only active landfill, and the DEQ report indicates that about 80 percent of the recent municipal and commercial waste deposited there originated in Canada.

Hackel said today Wednesday he has no interest in re-forming the waste committee unless the DEQ informs him the county needs more landfill capacity or if enough of the county's 27 communities ask him to amend the plan.

Hackel said he did not have a minimum or threshold figure of how many communities would have to support change. He did say a wide swath of northern county governments opposed any plan amendment when the new landfill was on the table.

"If everyone wants me to move this forward, if residents want me to seat this body and we get the Board of Commissioners to seat that body, then I will gladly be a part of that," he said. "And if more trash left the county, that only makes Macomb more green.

"But the only way I will move on this issue is if the DEQ tells me we have a landfill capacity issue or if the local communities come to me. The private sector isn't going to be influencing my position on this one way or the other because it shouldn't be."

JOHN SOBCZAK

Chuck Rizzo Jr., CEO of Rizzo Environmental Services Inc.

Chuck Rizzo, president and CEO of Rizzo Environmental, who announced the company's new proposal this week, said Hackel's stance on re-forming the waste committee is "confusing" and not what the company had been hearing earlier from the county about an export proposal.

He also dismissed the idea that Rizzo Environmental could alter its plan or revive the landfill proposal later.

"That's a case of the boogeyman syndrome, like we can change things up anytime we want," he said of Hackel's remarks. The solid-waste plan amendments, Rizzo said, are "the most transparent process you could ever go through, and what the county executive is saying now is exactly what Waste Management's executive team has been saying at town hall meetings out in the community to keep this plan amendment from happening."

Rizzo decided to move away from the landfill plan in part because the company, along with Florida-based Advanced Disposal Inc., expect to dispose of all of the city of Detroit's trash at the Detroit Renewable Energy LLC waste-to-energy plant — known as the Detroit incinerator — once the two new Detroit contractors take over solid-waste collection for the city May 1. That originally wasn't expected to happen when Detroit first shopped a proposal to privatize waste collection last year.

Neighboring St. Clair County also has been considering an amendment to its solid-waste plan to allow waste imports to its Smiths Creek Landfill in a deal that is expected to create more market competition for Pine Tree in Macomb, Rizzo and Jeffrey Bohm, chairman of the St. Clair County Board of Commissioners, both have said.

Rizzo said Hackel's implication that the application and amendment process could shift direction after it starts is a baseless concern. The Macomb County Board of Commissioners and two-thirds of Macomb's communities still have to support any amended waste plan before it takes effect, he said.

He added that Oakland County exports much more of its trash outside the county than Macomb does and is still able to support two active landfills, so competition for waste is not a threat to county capacity.

If Hackel's position, doesn't change, Rizzo said, other options include seeking more community support or possibly filing a lawsuit against the county to end a monopoly. But he said the company has not considered litigation recently and considers it a last resort.

"We'll probably continue looking at what we can do for community support or hope a candidate files that runs against the executive and maybe he'll have a more open mind on landfill competition," Rizzo said. "If someone throws their hat in the ring on that, maybe we'd have to look into backing them up."

Hackel said litigation might be an option for Rizzo to pursue.

"If they truly believe that there's some kind of fair competition violation of law, that's what the courts are for," he said. "My concern is, if you open up this committee process, how do you guarantee that something you don't want isn't going to happen? But right now, there is at least one guarantee that it isn't going to happen."

Rizzo has municipal waste hauling contracts for 32 communities in the tri-county metro Detroit region, including the Macomb communities of: Roseville, Eastpointe, St. Clair Shores, New Haven, Fraser, Center Line, Mt. Clemens and the townships of Chesterfield, Shelby and Clinton.